By ANIKA VAN WYK --Peace River country's Duane Steele is going to be playing a lot of games this Christmas.

"I'll be spending Christmas with my folks in Fairview," Steele tells Sun Country.

Since Steele has six older sisters and three younger brothers, the family has come up with a unique way to keep the gift buying under control.

"We have this Christmas Day game ... We usually buy one gift and mark it for a guy or girl."

Steele's sisters notify him which gender to buy for and, on Christmas morning, the gifts are handed out one at a time. Each sibling has the option of trading their gift with another before they open it.

"It's cool and it can be quite a bidding war," he chuckles.

Steele hopes to get socks in his gift.

"I've been travelling so much, I have holes in my socks."

But the present exchange isn't the only game.

After all the packages are opened, the family sits down and plays games.

The Hines Creek native says: "Christmas is a huge, chaotic thing."

Which isn't surprising when one adds up the 10 children and the 22 nieces and nephews.

Christmas is such an overwhelming experience, Steele hasn't exposed his girlfriend Tara to it yet.

Instead, Steele will head to the West Coast for New Year's and celebrate it with her.

"She's the video director who shot my first two videos," he says about the woman to whom he professed his love in the liner notes of his latest CD.

In early January, he'll head back to Nashville and "do nothing but songwriting."

He'll start touring again in February.